Day One Podcast

James Wycherley - TRANSFORMING ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE THROUGH CUSTOMER INSIGHTS

Episode Summary

The Day One podcast – Insights Room 101 is hosted by Hannah Mann. Guests coming on the show describe three of their worst professional pet peeves and aim to convince Hannah to bin one of them away forever in Room 101, much like the popular British TV show. Our guest on this episode is James Wycherley, an expert on Insight strategy and Insight team transformation and author of the new book, Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams. James joins us on the Room 101 podcast to share what things in the industry he’d like to see banished in Room 101 forever. The main pet peeves James describes are: naming conventions for things like “market research teams”; research briefs or data analysis; and thinking of “commerciality” as a dirty word. James provides meaningful criticism during our conversation, and we hope you enjoy it. Listen to the full episode to find out which one got banished to Room 101 forever.

Episode Notes

Our guest on this episode is James Wycherley, an expert on Insight strategy and Insight team transformation and author of the new book, Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams. James joins us on the Room 101 podcast to share what things in the industry he’d like to see banished in Room 101 forever. The main pet peeves James describes are: naming conventions for things like “market research teams”; research briefs or data analysis; and thinking of “commerciality” as a dirty word. James provides meaningful criticism during our conversation, and we hope you enjoy it.

Key Quotes:

“By accident. I joined Insight by accident, before it was called Insight. I left university. I joined Barclay’s Leadership Program. I found myself working on strategic marketing projects. And I was fortunate, in retrospect, to work on a number of projects that had a great deal of requirements for customized data.”
“What happened over the 20 years that followed is that organizations that never knew who their end customers were before had started selling things online. Many more have started interacting with people through social media. And the markets have sprung up in third-party data and secondary data that allows organizations of all shapes and sizes to have a more granular understanding of consumers in a marketplace.”
“If we refer to ourselves as research teams or analysis teams, there’s a danger that we’re going to perpetuate the organizational view that we are all about methodology rather than about outcomes, that we’re all about data or information rather than about insights and intelligence driving decisions.”
“Too many insight teams, in my view, allow their agendas to be set for them by other departments and indeed set themselves up as order takers for the other departments.”
“Insight is, or at least it could be, a strategic asset for an organization. I personally believe that insights, done well, have got the potential to transform the performance of an organization. But we tend not to manage it like a strategic asset.”
“What I’m calling for is a fundamental rethink of insights’ role in the organization. And the whole question of briefs and ways of working and interacting with different departments – that’s just one aspect of that order of the role that insight plays within its company.”
“My suggestion is that insight teams try to reframe the way in which they think about this concept of commerciality. I believe that sustainable commercial success relies on organizations harnessing and understanding customers, as well as a whole operational data, and an understanding of their role as providers. The value exchange that takes place is between customers and providers.”

Key Topics:

James describes writing book during the lockdown in 2020 (2:00)
He provides advice for those who want to write a book (3:46)
Describes how he got started in his career (5:24)
Notes the difference between his time at Barclays in the late 1990s until now (8:20)
The first pick for room 101 is market research teams or rather the naming conventions (10:57)
Describes that the best already override the naming conventions, focusing on the insights and intelligence (14:00)
Expands on teams who do this well (15:30)
Explains how heritage has led to the current siloed practices (18:39)
The next pick for room 101 is research briefs or data analysis (21:22)
Shares how other departments view insights teams (26:29)
Reflects on the personality type attracted to research and data, perhaps people pleasers – but not meant as a criticism (29:54)
The third pick for room 101 is the concept of insight teams treating commerciality as a dirty word (31:58)
Explains how to remove the barrier to help insight teams embrace commerciality (36:52)
Agrees to place his third pick in room 101 (43:26)

About - James Wycherley:

James joined the IMA as Chief Executive in May 2015 after 10 years as Director of Customer Insight and Analysis at Barclays. He is an expert on Insight strategy and Insight team transformation, knowledge development and communication, and he represented Barclays at the IMA's Insight forums for over a decade before joining the IMA team himself.

James has delivered consultancy and keynote presentations in Europe, North America, Australia, India and the Middle East, and has lectured at the Winchester, Anglia and Ashridge Business Schools.

He is the author of over 30 IMA publications and has just published a new book - Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams.

Relevant Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-wycherley-9193995/

www.dayonestrategy.com

www.transforming-insight.com

www.insight-management.org.

The Day One podcast is published by the Day One Strategy and produced by Zorbiant.